Natalia Maks is a fine artist-turned-photographer who loves traveling the world and capturing the unexpected through her lens — and is the guest host for this week’s photo challenge!

We are surrounded by textures.

One lovely day I was walking along a beach in Costa Rica, and found myself fascinated by the designs created by the water and sand.

The lower layers of sand were much darker than the top layers. As streams of water made their way to the ocean, they carved natural designs through the strata. Every angle revealed a new, beautiful interaction between water and sand, light and dark.

I love how these textures are all nature-made but can trick your eye into seeing a heavy silk fabric or a rolling moonscape; I can’t help but stop to capture these rich visual textures when I find them.

This week, share a texture found in an unexpected place. It could be made of natural materials, as in these images, or with man-made objects.

This is a great opportunity to look at the world in a slightly different way — along with looking at things from new angles, zooming very far out or very far in are both great ways to create texture and pattern in photos.

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